View full sizePictured with host Alex Trebek, Huntsville's Kristin Morgan won on her "Jeopardy!" debut. (Contributed by Jeopardy Productions Inc.)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Kristin Morgan kept a 50th anniversary NASA medallion in her pocket for good luck during her first appearance
on "Jeopardy!" and the charm worked.

The Huntsville resident and NASA strategic analyst used a
sly wagering tactic during "Final Jeopardy" to tally a high score of $6,700,
besting returning champion Ashok Poozhikunnel from Illinois and newcomer Ben
Swartz of Athens, Ga.

Swartz was leading tonight's episode of "Jeopardy!" going
into Final Jeopardy, followed by Morgan.

But when all three contestants muffed a clue from the category "Capital Cities," Morgan's wager dropped her only from $9,800 to $6,700 while Swartz plummeted from
$12,800 to $4,800 and Poozhikunnel, who'd bet the house, dropped to nil.

And it left
Morgan in first place.

Poozhikunnel's previous winnings coming into tonight's episode totaled more than $69,000. Perhaps Swartz hoodooed himself earlier in the broadcast. After the show returned from its first commercial break Swartz mentioned to "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek that people have told him he looks like Trebek.

Morgan will defend her new title as "Jeopardy!" champion 6
p.m. Thursday, (Jan. 10, 2013) on ABC's WAAY-TV. On Wednesday's episode she correctly solved
clues regarding everything from the James brothers outlaws to the '70s rock
group Queen to fondue to "The Tempest" stage play. Her co-workers had given her the aforementioned medallion as a talisman.

Wednesday afternoon, Morgan called Times entertainment writer Matt Wake from her 10th
floor office in Building 4200 at Marshall Space Flight Center and answered the
following questions before departing for downtown spot Amendment XXI to watch
her "Jeopardy!" debut with her husband, friends and NASA co-workers.

Kristin, how did you prepare for going on 'Jeopardy!"?

I used an online archive. Luckily there are a lot of
"Jeopardy!" geeks out there, and they have compiled like the past 29 seasons
onto an Internet site (j-archive.com), and so I looked through those and played
lots and lots of old "Jeopardy!" games.

What sort of insight did you gain from viewing those
"Jeopardy!" archives?

The biggest thing they have on this archive is a whole lot
of things on wagering strategies. It's a part of the game that's pretty
crucial, but I hadn't thought about before. How to bid when you're in first
place, second place, third place. What are the best odds? I think it really
helped out.

How did you find out you'd been chosen to appear on the show?

They called me. I auditioned in New Orleans in August. It
wasn't very long after, I think three weeks, and they just said, "Congratulations!
We're going to have you on 'Jeopardy!'" And we taped the show in October. So it
was kind of whirlwind. It's a three-part process. The first part is you have to
take an online test. And after you take that your results go off into a void.
Then I got a call that said, "Congratulations we want you for auditions in New
Orleans."

What goes on during the commercial breaks on the "Jeopardy!"
set?

They actually do stop for commercial breaks, and the
contestants have handlers, so someone comes over and gives you water and
chit-chats with you. Alex actually kind of hobnobs with the audience, so he
comes out from behind the podium and walks down to the edge of the stage, takes
questions from the audience and kind of just entertains. Once the commercials
are wrapping up he goes back to the podium and that's that. He doesn't really
interact with the players that much until the end where you see them rolling
the productions credits.

Did you get used to having a "handler"?

It's pretty sweet. They touch up your makeup, adjust all
your clothes. And they do treat you like royalty on the show.

Going into "Jeopardy!" what sort of trivia did you view as
your strength? Since you work for NASA, was it science or aerospace type stuff?

I was actually dreading any NASA or science-y kind of thing
because there would be too much pressure. I'm a crossword puzzle person and
have been doing The New York Times crossword puzzle since I was like 13, so any
sort of word-vocabulary-crossword clues are totally up my alley. And I'm pretty
good on literature - I read a lot. And actually I started out as an art history
major before I switched over to engineering. More kind of the music, painting,
literature, vocabulary types of categories.

Are you a longtime "Jeopardy!" fan or did you try out for
the show on a whim?

My mom and my brother and I watched it when I was a kid, so
I grew up with my mom saying, "You need to try out for the Teen Tournament."
And once I never got around to that it was, "You need to try out for the College Tournament." I never did that. So I finally got around to auditioning
for the adult tournament. But I've been watching it for at least 20 years.

Mustache Alex is the way to go. It just looks like he's
missing something.

It's like seeing Tom Selleck without a mustache. Something's
missing.

Exactly. It was an iconic 'stache.

What's the studio where "Jeopardy!" is shot like?

They shot in L.A., Culver City at the Sony Pictures Studio.
The audience seat around 200 I would say, so it's pretty intimate and they said it was one of
the older studios on the production lot. "The Wizard of Oz" was filmed at the
lot across the street.

Also, this is interesting. Because of all game show scandals
in the '50s and '60s the FCC highly regulates game shows. So we weren't allowed
to go anywhere on the lot without an escort when we were playing, so even if
you needed to go to the bathroom you have to be escorted by your handler to the
bathroom and they wait for you. Once you cross the gates into their lot it was a
bit of a different world.